steam question

steamman

I have a 20 foot run of 1-1/4" Steel baseboard. The first 5 feet get warm, after that cold. Pressure is at about 4 PSI. I broke the union after the trap and a good size of water came out and then the rest got hot. Everywhere in the building is heating correctly, it is just this one room. The return of this baseboard goes into a common return, then into a receiver with a vent, and no steam is coming out of the vent. I felt the pipe after the steam trap and it was cold until the T where it goes into the common return. Is the radiation air bound?? It the trap failed??

Steamhead

There may be a bad trap

elsewhere in the system that is pressurizing the dry return. Is the return steam-hot? It shouldn't be. Find the source of the steam in the return and fix it.

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steamman

If I was to put an air vent before the trap would this would this help at all?

steamman

There are many bad traps int he system, but because of budget difficulties we are not able to fix or guess which trap(s) are bad. If I put an air vent before the trap, will this at least solve the problem for the time being?

Steamhead

It might

but then again it might make things worse. In this situation we would have pressure coming from two directions- the steam main, and the return. This could drive steam up the return into the baseboard, where it would hammer the trap and vent into so much junk.

At the very least, I'd look to see which trap is blowing steam. This way you know what you're dealing with. There may be only one or two bad ones, in which case you could fix them now and do the rest later.

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Bill_12

steam question

I am installing 300 ft -- 1 1/2" 85 psi insulated steam main. All horizontal with 1" in 20 ft fall in direction of flow. a clean run with no takeoffs. Installing end of main trap. Is an additional trap needed at midpoint of piping run?